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Teodor, thank you very much for that information! It all makes sense - including deciding which instruments to choose, when to double parts and such. I guess here you are using your inner ear and understanding of the music to make good choices, so it's not just a matter of plucking the notes out of a chord that match the range of an instrument. What you write places limitations which are a special challenge. Thank you for the info. on Sibelius. Does this have the same handicap as Finale, where the introductory version doesn't allow you to do much, but the complete version costs a huge gob of money? (I don't know if Finale does the same thing).

I was wondering about the ability to change keys, because I studied violin for a number of years, and sharps signatures are often easier. Now I have my answer. In fact, I played your opening measures.

Well, you will have to understand what is comfortable and possible for the violins. I didn't think of that. It could be tricky. But in this case it should be comfortable.

Teodor Beethoven is a blast. there`s so much you can do with orchestration, too much for me to attempt at my age. His Bi Polar aspects always need particular attention which means volume nearly silent, then deafening. You`ll have fun doing this; I look forward to seeing the finished product! Well done man!

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"I'm playing all the right notes � but not necessarily in the right order." Eric Morecambe

Elle Great music on your new piano . . loved te Burgmuller one (2nd) so well and fluent. If I might say, break it down into sections and don`t be afraid to slow things down in between. . . fingerwork`s super!

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"I'm playing all the right notes � but not necessarily in the right order." Eric Morecambe

There's no shortage of rags written by men. For instance, right now, I'm working on Cottontail Rag by Joseph La...waitasec! What sort of man's man, especially one from New Jersey, writes a rag named after a cute, fluffy, pink bunny!?

Maechre Fantastic reading and playing! Well done; this does not look simple. Rattling through all that without pause or mistakes? The next time I do that will be the first! You`re well under way . . .

Thank you! I played this for my Uni recital last year (didn't do as well, but I passed!). I practised this many times before bringing out the camera, and then recorded it several times before I got a take I was almost happy with . . . and then I still had to edit out a mistake!

But I think I'm just starting to get somewhere with my reading. I'm working at it!

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I love sight-reading! One day I will master it.

Weiyan, you say that's P. Tchaikovsky, and I believe you - but the music sounds much older than his time period. There is a real medieval tone to it. Very nice!

_________________________XVIII-XXXVIIFollow your teacher's instructions and practice wisely/much, and you'll soon wonder how you ever found it hard. BobPicklePerformance anxiety: make it part of your daily routine and deal with it...Cope! zrtf90

peterws - Schubert Impromptu 3 - You play this well, but the mismatch between the sound and video drives me crazy. Reminds me of a concert of Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven, our seats were so high up that the sound and sight were out of sync. Wouldn't have been bad except there was a lot of fast notes. Looked like the sound was created by him lifting his hands rather than by lowering them.

Maechre - Kingdom Hearts: Simple and Clean (Hikari)It is still a good duration for the piano bar. Well done. Also you handle the page turns quite well.

ElleC - Minuet BWV 115 - Congrats on the new piano. I enjoyed the minuet. I noticed the ornaments in particular were nice and clean. - Arabesque - Burgmuller - This one is new to me. Again well played. It sounds like you are having no problem adjusting to your new piano.

Whizbang - The Thriller - more rags please !

Weiyan - Romance - you are picking up pieces fast

casinitaly, swissMS, peterws - thank you for your compliments.Thanks, Amaruk, BTW I didn't know this one had a name.

Weiyan, you say that's P. Tchaikovsky, and I believe you - but the music sounds much older than his time period. There is a real medieval tone to it. Very nice!

The song is a course material of Jaak Sikk's online classical piano course. Let me ask Jaak about the author and age of this nice piece.

I don't know how the course works but there are some things that are not the same as the score. Tchaykovski didn't write some of those rhythmic patterns that you play. It sound very different. Also this is music from the romantic period, it needs more pedalling.

The Tchaikovski "Album for the Young" pieces (Weiyan's Romance is one of them) are supposedly for children, and so for students. I got involved in an event on another site that featured another piece from the Album and my teacher talked about them. They look simple because they're in easy keys and don't cover a large range on the piano, but to make them sound good you need a lot of skills that a student won't have yet. Either that, or they were written for the kind of student they had in the old days that had a teacher every day of the week and practised for hours under close supervision. (If you read Czerny's "letters to a student" you'll get the idea.) Nowadays these pieces get assigned as grade 2/3/4 pieces and get played in an elementary way. When I was looking for ideas for my piece, I found one professional pianist called "Cubus" who did justice to it. I.e. it took a seasoned professional. Some "student piece"!

Second thought is about (us) students who are developing. Different teachers have different ideas. One is to move from easier to harder pieces, and learn skills along the way. One other idea is to focus on separate skills one at a time, because of the idea that we can only hold on to one new thing at any time. The one I know is to get the right notes with relatively easy motion, then worry about relative note value (two quarter notes fit into a half note), then tempo with even beat, then if you have that much control, play with rubato, dynamics etc. Pedal is in there too. So even if a piece calls for all kinds of fine effects, the teacher may want the student to be working at one of those points or levels I mentioned. As students we might practice in layers, along those same lines, adding to the piece as each one gets mastered, up to what skills we've reached.

These are the thoughts floating around in my head while listening to Weiyan playing the Tchaikovsky Romance.

I followed with the score. The right notes are there, I think, and generally an even pulse and note values. There are some tricky spots, and it's not a super-easy piece. There are a couple of slips in note value which may be the rhythmic thing that Teodor has mentioned: especially the G in the bass coming in beat 2 of m. 2, 4 etc. - it's early. But this is also a tricky spot if you're learning, because the G is being held across the measure for 3 beats when the music is in 2/4 time and that is probably why W comes in early. If I were playing this piece and I had reached my level, my teacher would say "Good. Put it away now. Come back to it later in 6 months when you have mastered more things, and then develop it further." At that point I'd discover what used to be hard is now easy, and I can do more.

Originally Posted By: Teodor

Also this is music from the romantic period, it needs more pedalling.

Undoubtedly - yes. But ... pedal is a skill, and I'm told it is a poorly taught skill. If I had learned it, then I'd go for it, maybe after getting a handle on the notes (which Weiyan has), maybe with a teacher's input on where to pedal. If I had not learned pedal, maybe I'd learn it in easier music, and then come back to it. I agree that it would sound better with pedal. In fact, part of this piece is the fact that from m. 17 - 20 you suddenly have a contrast with the staccato in the LH, contrasting with the legato RH, and suddenly in m. 21 we're back to pedal and the highlight of the piece.

An advanced pianist could do things like bring out phrasing in the RH, make the LH much softer than the RH, add rubato and subtle effects. But we are not advanced pianists, most of us.

Weiyan, all in all a good job. I'd love to hear what you do with it a year from now. (I have a number of pieces "on hold for the future" - the one I presented in this forum was on hold for two years!)

An advanced pianist could do things like bring out phrasing in the RH, make the LH much softer than the RH, add rubato and subtle effects. But we are not advanced pianists, most of us.

Weiyan, all in all a good job. I'd love to hear what you do with it a year from now. (I have a number of pieces "on hold for the future" - the one I presented in this forum was on hold for two years!)

I guess so, to me this piece doesn't even contain notes to read it's simple. But I do love to play it as well. I also play the Sick Doll and the Doll's Burial from this album and they are both great pieces. When I get tired of sucking at debussy, I go back to those just to prove to myself that I can still actually play piano decently

Maechre~~ Kingdom Hearts is a very pretty arrangement. I like how you delivered it.

Whizbang~~ Very sweet is May Audfefheide's Rag and you play this one superbly.

Stumbler~~ There's a lot going on with Chopin's A-Maj prelude. You bring out many of the subtleties really well. From what I can observe, Chopin continues to mature under one's fingers like a fine wine. This one's a keeper!

This is the ABF, not the Pianist forum featuring experienced advanced students and pianists, probably mostly trained. Those of us participating here are in the process of learning. Would it make a difference if you wrote "the student" instead of "the pianist" - and maybe, if you are a teacher, if you advised rather than using words like "distort"?

I don't know how familiar you are with people starting music as adults. One of the biggest problems is wanting to do things perfectly. Teachers go to great pains to say that learning to play and perfection do not go together, that every weakness is a chance for growth, and that it is expected. If we are lucky enough to have lessons, then what we present will not be "performances", but what we are able to reach, and from there we go further. You don't expect from a student what you expect from a performer. This is a place where we learn to play in front of our peers, where it is safe to do so, for encouragement and maybe some advice here and there. It's my first time participating, but I imagine that what we're looking for is how everyone grows over time.

Weiyan, you say that's P. Tchaikovsky, and I believe you - but the music sounds much older than his time period. There is a real medieval tone to it. Very nice!

The song is a course material of Jaak Sikk's online classical piano course. Let me ask Jaak about the author and age of this nice piece.

I don't know how the course works but there are some things that are not the same as the score. Tchaykovski didn't write some of those rhythmic patterns that you play. It sound very different. Also this is music from the romantic period, it needs more pedalling.

I played it without paddle. There is a paddle note G, I use pinky to hold it. The rest use finger legato. There is syncopation in bar 2, 4 and etc. There are some notes missed the tempo . May be the off tempo distorted the rhythmic pattern, which I didn't notice.

Weiyan, you say that's P. Tchaikovsky, and I believe you - but the music sounds much older than his time period. There is a real medieval tone to it. Very nice!

The song is a course material of Jaak Sikk's online classical piano course. Let me ask Jaak about the author and age of this nice piece.

I don't know how the course works but there are some things that are not the same as the score. Tchaykovski didn't write some of those rhythmic patterns that you play. It sound very different. Also this is music from the romantic period, it needs more pedalling.

Examined to the video and played it again. The off-tempo of Bar 2, 4 may not necessary break the rhythmic pattern. Instead, the strong LH pulse of beat 2 over emphasized the syncopation feel.

keystrin: Thank you. I even didn't aware the difficulty you mentioned. For a beginner, the difficult comes from the last two bar: both LH and RH jumps with two notes per hand. The second difficulty is the leap in arpeggio-staccato section.

This is my second video of this piece. First video is LH only, posted last month. The LH is very hard, beat 1 of bar 2,4 only played semi-quaver. Practice with paddle may hind faults in finger control. I think this is the purpose of the instructor not let std use paddle.

Weiyan -- keep it up. You are making great progress and I think in a few years you will really appreciate being able to go back and view all your videos and see exactly how far you've come. I'm inspired by your continuing participation in the piano bar.

...what we present will not be "performances", but what we are able to [achieve at the point in time we post], and from there we go further. ...This is a place where we learn to play in front of our peers, where it is safe to do so, for encouragement and maybe some advice here and there. It's my first time participating, but I imagine that what we're looking for is how everyone grows over time.

Hear, Hear. For example, I contribute to the forum because doing so makes me think in a focussed way about the song I am performing and how I play it. It makes me want to do better than just noodling around on the piano. Hints and tips are welcomed.